Candlelight glowed off whitewashed walls, the stone smooth and rounded. The cave widened as she entered, and now able to stand erect Tamara hurried through the constricted passageway. The sounds of ravenous werewolves didn’t penetrate into the cave system, and for an odd moment the underground tranquility lent her an air of fabricated serenity. Bowers’ voice pushed that composure aside.
“Hurry, princess; they may have seen us enter.”
The cavern meandered under the monastery foundations, and with panic fighting to override her other emotions the short passage seemed to wind on forever; as though it wouldn’t stop until it reached the pits of hell. Powerful footfalls echoed down the tunnel and harsh, panted breath filled the cavern until it became the only sound she could hear.
They’ve found us! They’ll catch me and gut me like a pig!
Her own panicked breath reverberated off the walls and she realized the sounds of pursuit came not from feral lycanthropes, but from Bowers and her own escape. It didn’t serve to lessen her anxiety—if werewolves could find her at such an obscure location then they would surely track her down no matter where she ran to.
The tunnel widened into the small chapel, a statue of Jesus on the cross located above an undersized altar. Candles burned on either side of the small sculpture, Christ’s pained expression of crucifixion mirroring the agony of her torment.
“Allow me, princess.” Bowers stepped in front of her and a sense of fretful impatience settled into her stomach. The primeval emotion of self preservation overwhelmed her, and Tamara couldn’t wait to get far away from the monastery grounds. Bowers leaned forward, aged fingers searching behind the stone altar, and he grunted as he released the locking catch. Stepping back, he pulled the altar complete with Jesus’ statue out into the room. Darkness settled thickly in the escape tunnel, the hole barely big enough to crawl through.
“Be swift, princess,” Bowers said, “and may God follow you.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
Bowers smiled, but resignation showed clearly in his weathered eyes. “I’ll hold the brute’s off for as long as I can to better your chance of escape. I’ll call you once this present danger has passed.”
Tamara knew she wouldn’t hear from Bowers again. If he was to stand his ground and defend her escape, he’d be slaughtered.
“Don’t abandon me.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I’d never do that, princess. I’m defending you; like I always have.” He glanced at the black hole in the wall. “Hurry; you need to be swift.”
Tamara couldn’t hear the sound of approaching werewolves, hoped they hadn’t found the cave entrance, and as such considered she had enough time to embrace the old man one last time. He groaned as if in pain when she stepped forward and pulled him close. She shut her eyes and tried to hold the image of Bowers’ friendly face in her memory—if it was to be the last time she’d ever see him, she wanted the recollection to be a good one.
Bowers pushed her away. “Go now, and be safe.”
Tamara ducked her head, sank to her knees, and although the darkness swamped her as she crawled into the tiny space, she wouldn’t have seen anything due to the tears in her eyes.
* * *
The nun’s blood tasted good: rich and unpolluted. From that, Trace deduced the slaughtered woman before him wasn’t a hybrid. He lifted his head from her torn corpse—a slab of the woman’s flesh wedged between his teeth—and sniffed the air. The sweet aroma of blood rode the night breeze, telling him his pack had already made a number of kills. A fetid smell tainted the air however, a stench that flushed hatred through his veins. Hybrids remained alive within the monastery walls, and Trace hoped the commanding officer was one of them—he wanted that kill for himself.
When standing erect he was a little less than nine feet tall. An imposing werewolf, his dark pelt almost concealing him within the shadows, Trace straightened his back and gazed across the main yard. Young pine trees stood in a landscaped area in the middle of the courtyard, light from the half-moon glinting off a small pond marked by rocks and shrubbery. A white-washed building constructed within the far ramparts gave way to an arched entryway near the distant corner, and the small Trinity Church located outside the monastery walls glowed with a soft, ashen hue.
Movement in the shadows attracted Trace’s attention as a dark figure emerged from a partially concealed entrance between the arch and the monastery’s main cathedral. The figure moved with purpose, its stature larger and more robust than any of the nun’s he would expect to find in the monastery grounds. Trace recognized a hybrid’s physique in an instant. His lips curled away from his maws; throat trembling as a growl escaped. Saliva coated with blood dribbled over his gums, and muscles in his thighs tightened as he sprinted across the cobblestone yard.
The hybrid had concealed itself in a hood and robe similar to a monk’s shawl. It noticed Trace’s swift approach and flung his garments away, its body transforming grotesquely. Before the change swept through the hybrid, Trace noticed the male’s wispy tendrils of white hair sparsely coating its head, skin wrinkled and devoid of elasticity. The hybrid looked like an old man and a flash of triumph erupted in Trace as he closed on him. He would relish tearing the aged, fragile body to shreds.
The hybrid grew rapidly and sprang powerfully off its hind legs, slamming into Trace as he closed fast. Trace braced to meet the challenge as the hybrid’s claws smashed into his chest. Thrusting his head forward, Trace closed jaws onto the hybrid’s shoulder, and fresh blood spattered his mouth. He raked talons along his opponents back as the impact sent both preternatural beings tumbling painfully over the cobbles. The hybrid may have appeared feeble in its human disguise but seemed a different proposition once it’d completed its metamorphosis. One of The Chosen, perhaps? It scrambled to its feet quicker than Trace.
A roar echoed off the ancient monastery walls, and hybrid claws scraped over the cobblestones as it closed on Trace in an instant. Trace slammed his heavy, clawed hand into the hybrid’s jaws as it lunged for his neck, pushing the enemy’s bite away. Fangs sliced through the flesh on his shoulder, and a yelp of pain erupted from the werewolf’s lips. The hybrid kicked out as it tumbled to the side, its solid feet thudding into Trace’s chest.
Stunned by the ferociousness of the hybrid’s attack, Trace needed to focus or he feared his war might end tonight. Jumping to his feet, he barked defiance at the hybrid; its figure hunkered in the shadows as if planning its next angle of attack. Adrenalin dampened the pain in his shoulder, but his pendant hanging around his neck knocked into the lacerations on his chest from the initial collision to elicit a subtle ache.
At the hybrid’s back, almost hidden by the darkness, Trace noticed the alcove through which the hybrid had appeared earlier. Trace’s pack had researched the location thoroughly before launching tonight’s raid, and he realized the niche was the entrance to the monastery’s cave church. A spark of knowing flashed through his mind, and Trace felt certain the commanding officer they were chasing had made its escape into the underground grotto.
A soft wind whispered around the courtyard and carried with it the sound of his baying pack brothers as they tore the monastery’s ill-prepared sentries to pieces.
He growled at the hybrid crouched before him, urging the half-blood to make its move.
The crossbreed exploded from the shadows, and in the second it took for the creature to close the gap between them, Trace stared with repulsion at its features: a countenance deformed into a stump, as if a wolfen snout had tried to materialize yet failed to do so; black, hollow eyes slanted towards a small nose, its lips peeled back in a snarl of hatred to reveal uneven, pointed fangs. The hybrid’s genes were predominantly vampire and a greater tide of loathing flushed through Trace’s body.
He dodged the charging hybrid with a split-second sidestep, and lashed at the attacking half-blood with razor-sharp talons. Claws gouged deep slits in the hybrid’s throat, the creature’s momentum
causing Trace’s nails to rip flesh from its shoulder and upper arm. The hybrid squealed in agony and tumbled forward onto the cobbles. A torrent of blood gushed onto the stones, the arterial liquid darker than the surrounding shadows. It struggled to its knees, severely wounded yet trying to regenerate itself in an effort to continue the fight.
Trace widened his shoulders, stood more erect, and displayed his obvious dominance over the injured hybrid. He took two strides forward and lashed out with a roar of preternatural defiance. Trace’s solid hand ploughed into the hybrid’s damaged neck and tore the creature’s skull from its vertebrae.
Its head spun through the night air and thudded wetly onto landscaped grass.
Trace arched his back, sucked air deep into his lungs, and bellowed loudly at the moon’s thin sliver.
The pack answered, and howls echoed off the monastery’s primeval walls.
Two of his soldiers skulked through the shadows, heads low in a cautionary stance, dilated pupils flashing red as they surveyed the scene and the hybrid’s bloodied remains. The two werewolves had been fighting at Trace’s side for decades now; both of them experienced and powerful.
Trace barked as they approached, motioned towards the obscured entrance, and grunted his order. They nodded, stepped in front of him and inched their way towards the opening. Candlelight flickered within, and shadows danced across the edges of the alcove. Trace stepped behind his two comrades, barking a warning that they should be careful about their approach. He had only seen one hybrid emerge from the passageway before them, but others might be lurking below ground. Trace growled authority as the two lycanthropes paused at the entrance, enforcing in them the knowledge that the hybrid commander was not to be harmed except by Trace himself.
Just inside the concealed doorway two tunnels split in different directions. It didn’t matter, because Trace knew both of them wound their way to the chapel. Unless those annoying half-breeds had dug some kind of escape hatch there would be no getaway. Issuing a quiet growl, Trace instructed the lycanthropes to split up. One darted left; the other took a more cautious step to its right.
Trace sniffed the air, detecting the odor from his two soldiers above the smell of burning wick and hot wax. His nose identified the stench of hybrids, although he couldn’t be sure how many had entered the cavern, nor how many might be lurking below. Aware the one werewolf had made swift progress down the tunnel to the left, Trace grunted at the lycanthrope before him, urging him to quicken the search. The seven foot tall wolf, crouched forward at an awkward angle in the confined space, barked a reply and loped down the cavern.
A glance over his shoulder told Trace the courtyard remained empty and quiet. The remainder of his pack was probably feeding off whatever kills they’d made during their swift assault of the complex.
He turned his attention back to the twin channels ahead of him, and a second later an explosion rocked the foundation walls.
An angry, pained roar bellowed up the right channel, dust billowing up both passages in thickening clouds that deadened the light thrown down by burning candles. Anger flushed through Trace’s body, fresh adrenalin surging within his veins to dampen any feeling of dread that might be threatening to form. Sinking to all fours, Trace loped down the passage to his left. Smoke stung the insides of his lungs as his nostrils flared to suck air in an attempt to survey his surroundings before he rounded a bend.
The sweet tang of blood hung heavy in the narrow corridor.
Trace reached the chapel but could go no further. Rubble piled in a huge mound throughout the tiny room, dust particles forming a dense fog that hung thick in the air. What parts of the surrounding wall Trace could see through the cloud were splattered a deep crimson, the whitewashed room doused with a thick coating of blood. Clumps of flesh and tissue littered the floor. A section of jawbone lay by Trace’s front paw, half of a lycanthrope’s head upside down on a collection of broken stonemasonry.
An agonized grunting filtered from the other passage, alerting Trace to the fact the more cautious of his two comrades was still alive.
A section of the wall across from the passage’s opening had collapsed inwards, large stones and brick welded together in the aperture by the explosion’s heat. Trace growled with contempt as the situation became obvious: the hybrid commander had made its escape through a tunnel carved in the mountain, one that had probably been concealed behind the chapel’s altar. The more anxious—or possibly the more stupid—of the two werewolves had realized this when arriving in the chapel, and had detonated whatever booby-trap the aged hybrid had wired in the room when he tried to gain access to the escape hatch. The lycanthrope’s death through its own stupidity angered Trace—although not as much as the knowledge that the commanding hybrid had escaped—but in a way he understood his comrade’s eagerness to hunt down its quarry. That wasn’t a mistake Trace had ever made however, and probably contributed to the fact he’d remained alive for over six hundred years in such a volatile existence.
He stared for a while at the obvious escape hole, now fused by rock and totally impassable. Anger pulsed in him with painful bursts and he roared with annoyance, slamming a clenched fist into the tunnel’s solid wall. Plaster fractured and rock clattered to the floor.
The surviving werewolf barked again, its call echoing through the enclosed tunnels.
Turning awkwardly in the cramped space, Trace bounded back up the passage, ignored the concealed exit to the courtyard, and hurried down the right-hand channel. His comrade had dragged its body halfway up the passage, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Dust particles settled onto its pelt as if a layer of snow had fallen, and cuts from the exploding masonry peppered its body. Flesh had been torn from its right leg; a bone protruded through the muscle. The lycanthrope grunted in agony as it tried to push its own bone back into its leg. Once the shattered ends of its limb were aligned properly the werewolf’s body could begin the process of regeneration. Judging by the wound Trace figured it would take about a week to heal enough to allow him to rejoin the conflict, but in order to speed up the process of healing his comrade would need to stay transformed. That wasn’t such a bad thing, Trace decided; living a week as nothing but a werewolf was something he could easily embrace.
Trace grunted at his colleague and the werewolf nodded, moaning in reply that he’d be okay. They locked arms, and Trace pulled him through the cavern until they reached the cool night air. Trace released his comrade, and the werewolf sat on the cobbles and forced the bone into the flesh. He issued a satisfied groan, and relaxed.
Trace bellowed his call around the courtyard, a roar that would carry for miles. The darkened silhouettes of monstrous werewolves materialized from the shadows, and Trace gave a quick head count. All accounted for, with the exception of the eager werewolf lying in fragments under the cathedral foundations. Not a bad night’s work, Trace considered, even if the superior hybrid officer had managed to elude him.
Still, the bitch couldn’t run forever.
Trace barked his orders: the hybrid remains were to be gathered together and hauled into the surrounding woodland where they would be burned—the dead lycanthrope’s body parts would be incinerated with them. The population of nuns in the monastery had been slaughtered too; such a cull was unavoidable with the type of surprise raid Trace’s pack had launched. Their corpses would be laid out in the cathedral. The work should be completed before daybreak, then Trace and his brothers would vanish into the dawn as if they were the fading darkness of night.
He ambled to the monastery’s main gate and stared out at a dark Ukrainian countryside.
Four hundred years ago they’d failed to eradicate the hybrid species, and werewolves had been paying a price ever since. Rage burned eternally within Trace as he reminisced on comrades lost in conflict with those mangy half-breeds. He breathed deep and inflated his chest, ignoring the burning pain from the claw marks on his torso.
This time the net was closing tight; hybrids herded into Europe; their dirty, ro
tting carcasses left in the wake of lycanthropic dominance.
This time they would be annihilated—Trace would make sure of it.
* * *
A tributary of the much larger Dniester River, the Luh snakes around the Holy Mountain near the village of Zymne. The escape tunnel’s exit point lies beneath the surface, the burrow’s last few meters meandering between the solid roots of a group of trees on the river’s banks.
Tamara’s foot sank into mud, and her next step sloshed water which echoed along the cavern. She hesitated, her nocturnal vision showing the disturbed water as a lighter shadow within the darkness.
After an initial crawl of twenty feet through solid bedrock, the tunnel widened and she’d been able to run in a crouch. The frantic hammering of her heart served to increase the feeling of sorrow and despair which had intensified immeasurably after Bowers had pushed the stone altar back into place, sealing her within the passage. It’d felt like the solemn closure to a chapter of her life; a poignant finality that weighed heavily on her emotions. Now, near the river, the tunnel constricted once more, tapering into a funnel towards its submerged opening.
She hoped the aperture was still wide enough for her to squeeze through; concerned that the water may have loosened the surrounding soils enough to cause a collapse and block the opening. When they’d arrived at the monastery two nights ago, Bowers had told her the underwater hole had been strengthened with wood garnered from the monastery grounds, but that had probably been years ago and the timber might have become unstable. When she weighed her options, Tamara knew she really had only one.
Gazing at the black water around her feet gave her a strong sensation of foreboding, but she couldn’t go back the way she’d come. She took another step into the water, mud sliding under her weight, and slipped back onto moist earth with a startled yelp. The tunnel’s ceiling pressed down upon her, as if encouraging her to duck forward and lunge head first into the water. The river inside the tunnel felt warm, but she knew once she reached the main run it would be colder and faster.
The Last Stand -- Blood War Trilogy Book III Page 4